Green
by Berrybanana05
Summary: Draco explains how exactly he came to hate, love, and resent the colour green in all the forms it haunts him in.


It's a bit messy but I'm still pleased with it. I hope you enjoyed it :)

* * *

Green.

Green. Green is the colour of his grass beneath him when he and his family are celebrating the end of the war. His father does so begrudgingly at first but soon his mother's infectious smile and giddy laughter- _they're free, they're all free and her son won't ever have to face the Dark Lord's wrath_\- melts his icy exterior and he's laughing too.  
They eat strawberries in the gardens and Draco wishes every day could be just like this.

It isn't.  
The laughter stops when a mysterious letter comes clattering through the letterbox and suddenly his father is absent again, replaced by footprints Draco can never fill and a shadow he can never escape.  
His mother cries for nights on end.  
He hears her sobbing and shouting through the thin, thin walls and hears his father's cold retorts fire back.  
Draco wonders where the summer went and curls up smaller in his bed.  
_(The seal on that envelope is green, too.)_

* * *

Green. Green is the colour of the wrapping paper strewn across the room on his birthday when he uncovers his present to find that a broom is sitting in his lap, polished handle gleaming in the daylight, twigs rustling as they scrape his knees.  
He has no words for the joy he feels as he kisses his mother on the cheek, bows respectfully to his father, and flees the drawing room to test his new broom in the garden.

The joy fades to determination, then to anger as the broom rolls at his feet, refusing to jump into his hand. His pride and his mother's gentle encouragements the only thing stopping him from throwing the damn thing on the compost and setting it ablaze.

Green. Green is the colour of his leather shoes the day he finally stops staring down at them, the day the broom obeys and leaps into his awaiting palm.  
He grins.  
He throws himself onto his broom and takes off.

He falls.  
He falls again and again, each graze and bruise only tripling his determination to stick with it and keep trying.  
He soars and he plummets. Again and again until his fingertips have worn permanent divots into the wood and he no longer tumbles from the sky, no matter what manoeuvre he tries.  
His worries melt away in the gentle winds and whenever one of those envelopes comes crashing into their lives he grabs his broom and takes to the skies.

* * *

Green. Green is the colour of the scraggly boy's eyes when Draco meets them, offering friendship- no, Malfoys didn't do friendship… An _alliance_, with a few cold, drawling words. He feels the embers in his heart spark into life at the thought of meeting a fellow student and reaches out in the only way he knows how.  
He sees how the boy shirks away when he does so and as he digs himself into a deeper and deeper hole with every word he utters to him, he feels the warm spark that grew in him sputter out.

The boy leaves the store as fast as his legs will carry him and Draco tries to assure himself that the boy was a lost cause anyway- why would Draco even want the friendship- no, an _alliance_ he had to remember that- with such a horribly dressed, messy _orphan_ who was wandering around with a _servant_ of all people?  
Draco wonders why the horrible ache in his chest only worsens at the thought.

* * *

Green. Green is the colour of his robes when he sits down at the Slytherin table, his very blood singing with the knowledge that he is _home,_that he is _where he is meant to be._  
His fingertips graze the polished tables, trace the carvings etched on the undersides of the ancient wood and he hears them chime in with their agreement.  
The sorting hat recognised him as _cunning,_as _ambitious,_and _worthy_the moment its ribbons brushed his hair.

He sits down with a practised elegance, casting a quick eye down the table before cooly turning to observe the rest of the Sorting.  
His elation fades as the scraggly boy- _Harry Potter_\- is sorted into Gryffindor and sits down beside a beaming Weasley. The fresh rejection still stings and Draco finds himself cursing his own stupid luck. What did a penniless blood-traitor like Weasley have that he didn't?

* * *

…Green. Green is the only colour he sees around Potter, it seems.  
Potter is Seeker. Green.  
Potter is popular. Green.  
Potter has the one and only thing Draco can seemingly never have- his father's attention.  
Green, green, green.  
Potter only has to smile and Malfoy morphs into a green-eyed monster.

It's no surprise to anyone when they clash.  
Slytherin versus Gryffindor, pureblood against half-blood, dark against light.  
Potter seems to have forgotten that day in Madame Malkins, the first time he rejected Draco's friendship but Draco never will. Malfoys are famous for holding grudges.  
He wonders why he cares and then he catches a glimpse of those furious flashing eyes again and to his eternal shame, his heart thumps with anticipation and he feels the familiar, exhilarating anger crash through him again.

* * *

Green. Potter is up with him, in the Minister's box.  
Green. The dark mark splits the sky and he's running, terrified.  
Green. Potter's name flies out of the cup and as always, jealously rears its ugly head.

Potter gets to the cup at the same time as Cedric and for a moment, Draco is blinded by the colour again… Then they disappear.  
They fail to arrive at the start of the maze and rather than the shades of green- of jealousy, joy, and anger that have been trailing him all his life, all he can see is darkness, all he can feel is fear.

Potter returns hours later spouting some nonsense about the return of the Dark Lord- he wishes it was nonsense at least- and Draco watches as the whole Wizarding World turns on their once-loved Saviour, so desperate to ignore the truth that they're willing to ignore the boy they once worshipped.  
"The Boy Who Lied" they call him.  
Draco thinks a better news article would be, "The People Who Lied to Themselves".  
That doesn't stop him from making the situation a lot worse, however, with a cold little smile on his features the whole time.  
The green fades into a dull, shifting grey, and he tells himself it is better.  
_(It isn't.)_

* * *

_Green._

_Green._

_Green._

Green is the colour of the seal on the envelope he finds on his bed when he returns to his dorm…  
The same envelope that came to throw his world into disarray so many years before.  
He runs his fingertip down the knife-sharp fold of the paper, wincing as blood blooms there.  
He opens the envelope.  
He reads it.  
He reads it again.  
Draco reads the slip of paper until he could recite the damn thing from memory if asked to and collapses on his bed, too shocked to be angry.  
_It's true- it's all true._

Voldemort is back.

His father is a death eater.

Voldemort is staying at the manor.

His father wants him to- Voldemort wants him to- to become a death eater.

He wonders what his mother would think.  
_(He's pretty sure he knows)._

* * *

Green is the colour of the wine bottle clutched in his hand, of the alcohol bottles littered around him when Pansy finds him a few hours later. He's drunk out of his mind and she screams at him, snatching the bottle away, asking him why, WHY would he be so STUPID-  
Then she sees the green-sealed envelope.  
Her eyes trace its angular shape, running down the edges to the bloodstain at the base.  
She falls silent.  
She casts a diagnosis spell, checking him for alcohol poisoning and then helps him into bed, smoothing back the hair on his forehead and placing hangover potions on the bedside table on top of the letter.  
She stays with him, all through the night, and Draco dreams of glorious green grass and polished ebony brooms.  
When he wakes up, she is gone, and so are the ghosts of his happiness.

* * *

_Green._ That is the colour he cannot escape. The once soothing green pastels of the manor are veiled in darkness, happy memories of these halls corrupted by the things he sees lurking there now.  
And when he doesn't see green, he sees only red- _Gryffindor_ red-  
Red staining his carpets.  
Red staining his robes.  
Red staining his hands.

His father has failed and Draco must do the impossible.  
He can't.  
Voldemort knows it, his father knows it, his mother knows it, and even Severus does.  
He is not a killer.

The pulsing snake branded into his arm seems to disagree.

* * *

Green.  
That is the colour of the first spell he tries on the cabinet.  
The first of many to fail.  
That is the colour of the ceiling above him as he lies on the tiles in the bathroom, half-paralysed by pain, by perfect Potter's spell, shuddering and screaming.  
He hears a quiet stammer, a cry of- "I didn't know what it would do-!"  
Draco laughs despite himself.  
Snape swoops in and saves him.  
_(Draco wishes he hadn't.)_

* * *

Green. That is the colour that haunts him.  
That is the colour of the killing curse that is branded behind his eyelids, the green he sees whenever he closes his eyes.  
It is the colour of the spells that fired across Hogwarts, crackling and brilliant and horrifying.  
It is also the colour of those bright eyes framed by wild, messy locks, of eyes he could get lost in so easily.  
Eyes narrowed in hatred.

Draco expects Azkaban, he expects harsh words to pour from Potter's mouth like vitriol. Instead, he is spared, the court won over by Harry's account of Draco refusing to confirm the identity of Harry Potter to the Death Eaters and of his tale of Narcissa's lie, too.  
He walks free (if you ask the law) but the chains of his past hold him tighter than any prison could.  
People cross the street when they see him.  
Cafes refuse to serve him.  
Stores begging for employees turn him away.  
He made his choice, they think. Now he must deal with it.  
He agrees.  
_(And he does.)_

.

.

.

Green.

It is a colour that has followed him his entire life, from the soft blanket in his crib to his school tie. Green is the colour of the wrapping on his first broom, of the box that held his first wand. Green is the colour of life and yet also death.  
Green is the colour of the grass he is lying on now, the grassy knoll beside the young wood that used to be the Malfoy estate before they- he and his mother- set it aflame, watching years of memories go up in smoke.  
It is better now. The charred husk of the manor has long since collapsed and new life has grown from the ashes.  
_(It is proof, in a way- he has achieved something, he has proved to himself he is capable of good, capable of creating life where he has experienced only death.)_

Draco lies on his back, staring up at the sky through a veil of glorious green.  
He is safe here.  
He looks to his left, smiling as he sees the closed lids of his companion, the boy who had the most brilliant eyes he has ever seen.  
They remind him of the good and the bad and the in-between, but mostly,

they remind him of how much he loves

and hates

in equal measure,

the colour

green.


End file.
